


278. lost love

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [128]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 04:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8474914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: There is a knocking on sestra Alison’s door at three in the morning on Helena’s first night back from the desert.





	

There is a knocking on _sestra_ Alison’s door at three in the morning on Helena’s first night back from the desert. The porch light flickers on; Helena wakes up on the couch in the basement and thinks _where is the knife_ before she can stop herself and then is mostly confused, and tired. But she’s uncurling from the couch and tiptoeing towards the door before she thinks about it too hard. It’s safe. Some instinct tucked deep in her bones tells her it’s safe.

When she pushes the curtain to the side, careful-careful, Sarah is there. See! Like Helena knew she would be.

Helena opens the door and a gust of cold air sighs its way inside. “ _Sestra_ ,” she says, voice a sleep-croak. “Are you safe? What is wrong.”

“Nothing,” Sarah says, shifting from foot to foot. “Can I – can I come inside?”

Of course she can. Any place Helena stays is a place Sarah can enter. Helena opens the door and Sarah walks in, shedding her coat but not her leather jacket or boots.

“Is problem?” Helena says again, insistently. Sarah is still twitching; she doesn’t answer. She just sits down on the couch. Helena sits down next to her and before she can open her mouth and say the same question in different words—

Sarah has her pulled into a hug, tight, Sarah cold from the outside, Sarah’s grip enough to crush. Helena is holding her back. There’s no prelude to that action; she just _is_. Sarah is holding Helena and so Helena is holding her back. Easy.

“I’m here,” she says, hand grabbing onto the fabric of Sarah’s jacket. “I’m here.”

“Woke up in the middle of the night and thought you were still gone,” Sarah tells her shoulder; her voice sounds teary. “Thought I hadn’t found you yet, that you were still out there, that you needed me and I—” She hasn’t stopped hugging Helena. Helena wonders if Sarah knows how happy she would be, if Sarah never stopped hugging her. She might. She might not. Helena doesn’t know whether or not that’s something she could tell her.

“You brought me home,” she says, which isn’t exactly the truth – but it sounds like something Sarah needs to hear, and it’s true. In its own way. Sarah brought her home, to here, to this couch, to this family. Sarah took Helena’s hand and pulled her towards the sun.

“Bullshit,” Sarah says through sniffles. “You brought yourself home, I didn’t do shite.”

“Maybe,” Helena says lightly. Sarah snorts a little bit.

“Not even gonna pretend, are ya.”

Helena swallows. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she says.

“I know,” Sarah says. “It’s just – does it feel like it didn’t happen? Now we’re back, and I took a bloody _shower_ , and it doesn’t feel real.”

Helena is wearing Alison’s clothing. Helena smells like Alison’s soap. Helena has met Alison twice, and one of those times was a dance party. Less than a year ago she was—

Which is to say: no. It doesn’t feel real. None of this feels real. Helena has stopped paying much attention to what is real and what isn’t.

“It’s over,” she says, instead of any of that. “We are home now.”

“Didn’t feel like it without you,” Sarah says, so quietly Helena almost misses it. “It’s not right without you here.”

“I thought,” Helena says, and stops, and then keeps going. “You would be happier. Without – me.”

“Oh, meathead,” Sarah says. “Helena, that’s – that’s not true. We all missed you. Alison was gonna charge off to the desert with some bloody pipe cleaners and glitter glue to get you back.”

_I didn’t want Alison_ , Helena thinks to Sarah, and for a second their connection is solid – it must be, because Sarah hears her.

“I was going crazy without you,” she says, quiet again. Helena imagines her words burning into Helena’s skin and being there, real, forever.

“But you came,” Helena says, and her voice is a little thin with tears but she doesn’t think Sarah is going to tell anyone. “You found me.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says. She holds onto Helena tight. She keeps on not letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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